Because yes, the fleet was still coming, and yes, they might very well die the next morning, but in that instant it didn’t matter, because fuck it, she could fly.

“You’ll need some air support,” Kitay said after a while.

“Air support?”

“You’ll be a very conspicuous, very obvious target. You’ll want someone fending off the people shooting at you. They throw rocks, we throw them back. A line of archers would be nice.”

Rin snorted. Arlong’s defenses were spread thin as things were. “They’re not going to give us a line of archers.”

“Yeah, probably not.” He shot her a sideways look, considering. “Should we try Eriden before the last council starts? See if he’ll lend us at least one of his men?”

“No,” she said. “I have a better idea.”

Rin found Venka the first place she looked—training in the archery yard, furiously decimating straw targets. Rin stood in the corner for a moment, watching her from behind a post.

Venka hadn’t fully learned yet to compensate for her stiff arms, which seemed to spasm uncontrollably and to bend only with effort. They must have hurt badly—her face tightened every time she reached for her quiver.

She hadn’t taken her left arm brace off. She’d just locked her upper wrist into place instead. She was shooting while overcorrecting for a hyperextended arm, Rin realized. But for the amount of control she had left, Venka had a stunning degree of accuracy. Her speed was also absurd. By Rin’s count she could shoot twenty arrows a minute, maybe more.

Venka was no Qara, but she’d do.

“Nice go,” Rin called at the end of a fifteen-arrow streak.

Venka doubled over, panting. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

In response, Rin crossed the archery range and handed Venka a silk-wrapped parcel.

Venka glared at it suspiciously, then placed her bow on the ground so she could accept. “What’s this?”

“A present.”

Venka’s lip curled. “Is it someone’s head?”

Rin laughed. “Just open it.”

Venka unwrapped the silk. After a moment she looked up, eyes hard, flinty and suspicious. “Where did you get this?”

“Picked it up in the north,” Rin said. “It’s Ketreyid-made. You like it?”

Before they’d returned to Arlong, she and Kitay had bundled all the weapons they could scavenge onto the raft. Most of them had been short knives and hunting bows that neither of them could use.

“This is a silkworm thorn bow,” Venka declared. “Do you know how rare this is?”

Rin wouldn’t have known silkworm thorn from driftwood, but she took that as a good sign. “I thought you’d like it better than those bamboo creations.”

Venka turned the bow over in her hands, then held it up to her eyes to examine the bowstring. Her arms shook. She glanced down at her trembling elbows, openly disgusted. “You don’t want to waste a silkworm thorn bow on me.”

“It’s not a waste. I saw you shoot.”

“That?” Venka snorted. “That’s nowhere close to before.”

“The bow will help. Silkworm thorn’s lighter, I think. But we can also get you a crossbow, if it’ll help with distance.”

Venka squinted at her. “What exactly are you saying?”

“I need air support.”

“Air . . . ?”

“Kitay’s built a contraption to help me fly,” Rin said bluntly.

“Oh, gods.” Venka laughed. “Of course he has.”

“He’s Chen Kitay.”

“Indeed he is. Does it work?”

“Shockingly, yes. But I need backup. I need someone with very good aim.”

She was absolutely sure Venka would say yes. She could read longing all over Venka’s face. She was looking at the bow the way some might a lover.

“They won’t let me fight,” she said finally. “Not even from the parapets.”

“So fight for me,” Rin said. “The Cike’s not in the army and the Republic can’t tell me who I can recruit. And we’re down a few men.”

“I heard.” A smile cracked across Venka’s face. Rin hadn’t seen her look so genuinely happy in a long, long time. Venka held the bow tight to her chest, caressing the carved grip. “Well, then. I’m at your service, Commander.”

Chapter 30

At dawn, Arlong’s civilians began clearing out of the city. The evacuation proceeded with impressive efficiency. The civilians had been packed and prepared for this for weeks. All families were ready to go with two bags each of clothing, medical supplies, and several days’ worth of food.

By midafternoon the city center had been hollowed out. Arlong became a shell of a city. The Republican Army quickly transformed the larger residences into defense bases with sandbags and hidden explosives.

Soldiers accompanied the civilians to the base of the cliffs, where they began a long, winding climb up to the caves inside the rock face. The pass was narrow and treacherous, and some heights could not be scaled except by using several stringy rope ladders embedded into the rock with nails.

“That’s a rough climb,” Rin said, looking doubtfully up the rock wall. The ladders were so narrow the evacuees would have to go up one by one, with no one to aid them. “Can everyone make it?”

“They’ll get over it.” Venka walked up behind her with two small, sniffling children in tow, a brother and sister who’d been separated from their parents in the crowd. “Our people have been using those hills as hideouts for years. We hid there during the Era of Warring States. We hid there when the Federation came. We’ll survive this, too.” She hoisted the girl up onto her hip and jerked her brother along. “Come on, hurry up.”

Rin glanced backward over her shoulder at the masses of people moving below.

Maybe the caves would keep the Dragons safe. But the southern refugees had been ordered to occupy the valley lowlands, and that was just open space.

The official word was that the caves were too small to accommodate everyone, and so the refugees would have to make do. But the valley provided no shelter at all. Exposed to the elements, with no natural or military barriers to hide behind, the refugees would have no protection from the weather or the Militia—and certainly not from Feylen.

But where else were they going to go? They wouldn’t have fled to Arlong if home were safe.

“I’m hungry,” complained the boy.

“I don’t care.” Venka tugged at his skinny wrist. “Stop crying. Walk faster.”

“This battle will take place primarily in three stages,” said Vaisra. “One, we will fend them off at the outer channel between the Red Cliffs. Two, we win the ground battle in the city. Three, they will try to retreat along the coast, and we will pick them off. We’ll get to that stage if we are miraculously lucky.”

His officers nodded grimly.

Rin glanced around the council room, amazed by how many faces she’d never seen before. A good half of the officers were newly promoted. They wore the stripes of senior leadership, but they looked five years older than Rin at most.